Beautiful Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

you.”
    “They hate me, and that’s how it should be.” Her hair was beginning to curl, and for a second I thought there was going to
     be a downpour. She put her head in her hands, ignoring the tears that were losing themselves in her crazy hair. “Something
     has to stay the same. I’m nothing like them.”
    “I hate to break it to you, but you never were, and you never will be.”
    “I know, but something’s changed. Everything’s changed.”
    I looked out my window. “Not everything.”
    Boo Radley stared back at me. He was sitting on the faded white line of the parking space next to ours, as if he had been
     waiting for this moment. Boo still followed Lena everywhere, like a good Caster dog. I thought about how many times I had
     considered giving that dog a ride. Saving him some time. I opened the door, but Boo didn’t move.
    “Fine. Be that way.” I started to pull the door closed, knowing Boo would never get in. As I did, he leaped up into my lap,
     across the gearshift, and into Lena’s arms.
    She buried her face in his fur, breathing deeply, as if the mangy dog created some kind of air that was different from the
     air outside.
    They were one quivering mass of black hair and black fur. For a minute, the whole universe seemed fragile, like it could fall
     apart if I so much as blew in the wrong direction or pulled the wrong thread.
    I knew what I needed to do. I couldn’t explain the feeling, but it came over me as powerfully as the dreams had, when I saw
     Lena for the first time. The dreams we had always shared, soreal they left mud in my sheets, or river water dripping onto my floor. This feeling was no different.
    I needed to know what thread to pull. I needed to be the one who knew the right direction. She couldn’t see her way clear
     of where she was right now, so it had to be me.
    Lost. That’s what she was, and it was the one thing I couldn’t let her be.
    I turned on the car and shifted into reverse. We had only made it as far as the parking lot, and I knew without a word that
     it was time to drive Lena home. Boo kept his eyes closed the whole way.

    We took an old blanket back to Greenbrier and curled up near Genevieve’s grave, on a tiny patch of grass next to the hearthstone
     and the crumbling rock wall. The blackened trees and meadows surrounded us on every side, tufts of green only beginning to
     push through the hard dirt. Even now it was still our spot, the place where we had first talked after Lena shattered the window
     in English class with a look—and her Caster powers. Aunt Del couldn’t stand to see the burnt cemetery and ruined gardens
     anymore, but Lena didn’t mind. This was the last place she had seen Macon, and that made it safe. Somehow, looking at the
     wreckage from the fire was familiar, even reassuring. It had come and taken everything in its path, and then it was gone.
     You didn’t have to wonder what else was coming or when it would get here.
    The grass was wet and green, and I wrapped the blanket around us. “Come closer, you’re freezing.” She smiled without looking
     at me.
    “Since when do I need a reason to come closer?” She settledback into my shoulder and we sat in silence, our bodies warming each other and our fingers braided together, the shock moving
     up my arm. It was always that way when we touched—a gentle jolt of electricity that intensified with our every touch. A
     reminder Casters and Mortals couldn’t be together. Not without the Mortal ending up dead.
    I looked up at the twisted black branches and the bleak sky. I thought about the first day I followed Lena to this garden,
     the way I’d found her crying in the tall grass. We had watched the gray clouds disappear from an otherwise blue sky, clouds
     she moved just by thinking about them. The blue sky—that’s what I was to her. She was Hurricane Lena, and I was regular
     old Ethan Wate. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without her.
    “Look.” Lena climbed